Federman loves his name, if only because it's another word that
he can play with. Federman loves to play. He plays with anything
he can get his hands on. If there is nothing there, then he
plays with his name.

When someone notes that it is a strange family name for a
Frenchman, he points out that his father's family was Russian.
That's what he says, but he's not sure himself if it's correct,
because Federman often confuses Poland with Russia in his mind
and in his writing. Federman never studied geography when he was
in school, he never got to that subject, he was forced out of
school, for reasons which Federman is always reluctant
to elucidate.

Federman never seems to notice that Federman is a pretty
strange name for a Russian, too. [How ignorant can a guy be?]

The name Federman is a polylingual pun. Feder is German for
feder, and so Federmann would be featherman -- der Mensch von
Feder. In French, since Federman often speaks to himself in
French, feather is plume which, of course, is also pen or
porteplume -- but that's too obvious.

By a rather roundabout linguistic route [known as the leap-frog
technique]

Federman becomes the penman [Homme de Plume for those who
know him in French,

Hombre della Pluma for those who know him only in Spanish].
The Penman, a very joycean name which contains within it Ray's
vocation as a kind of etymological guarantee.

No, rather, a very beckettian name, because of the cringing
scatological humor that surfaces from this transatlantic leap into
the reverse of farness, as Old Sam Beckett once put it.
Fart-erman, as some of his friends call him.

Federman: a name, a pun that contains within it not only Ray's
vocation, but Moinous' misfortunes, too. Moinous: the secret
name Federman gives himself when he pretends to be a spy, or a
musketeer, or a paratrooper, or a jazz musician, or a French lover,
or an experimental writer.

Yes, that's what Federman sometimes calls himself, Moinous,
and if you ask him, who's Moinous? he tells you: oh just a word,
a name I made up. It means, me/us. By the way, it's also the
name on the license plate of his wife's car.

His wife, when people ask her, who's Moinous? always answers:
Moinous! That's the guy who bought the car. Moinous is
ominous -- o-m-i-n-o-u-s!

But the feder/feather/plume/[et al] also has about it a sense
of flight, of voltigement and lightness, a birdlike quality, of
escape, of escapade, of disappearance and reappearance within
itself, of being both present and absent at the same time. Of
being here and elsewhere and everywhere. Now and always and
forever.

>From Federman to Namredef [another name Federman is fond of
using] there is but a stroke of the pen -- la plume -- yes, a
little reverse twist of the wrist, and: voilà, Federman is
here and there at the same time, laughing madly because, once again, Federman succeeded in doing a little linguistic sommersault in his own name. A great leap-frog over the Atlantic. That's how much Federman loves his name.

He would do anything for it, anything to preserve it, even if it
means breaking his neck doing linguistic somersaults within his
own name. That's how flexible the name Federman is.

After all, Federman will tell you, my father was not only a
Russian, he was a Russian Cossack. Perhaps the only Jewish
Cossack in the entire Russian Cossack Army ever. And in Russian
they called my father: Dimitri Fyodor Konstantin Ivanovitch
Federmanov.

And he will even tell you that one of his ancestors was
nobility, the Baron Nicolas von Federman, a 16th century German
Conquistador, who died an unfortunate death by drowning while
paddling a rowboat down some infested river in the jungles of the
New World -- a rowboat full of treasures, gold, precious stones,
ancient statues, bibelots, even money, or whatever rare currency
was used for money in those days. Yes, Federman's glorious
ancestor, Le Baron Nicolas de Féderman, as he was known in
France when he resided at the court of Henry the Fourth, before he
sailed to the New World in conquest of fame and fortune, drowned
rowing down some infested river in the jungles of some yet
unnamed country. That's what Federman will tell you, if you ask
him where the name Federman comes from, and what it means.

His wife [whose name shall not be investigated today, a name
loaded with beautiful possibilities -- Hubscher was her maiden
name, which means more beautiful] always tells him that Federman
does not mean Penman, that it has nothing to do with la plume
and with his vocation as a writer, that simply the name came from
what his ancestors were doing back in the old country. And what
were Federman's ancestors doing in the old country? his wife
explains, plucking chicken feathers in the steppes of Russian or
the Ghettos of Poland. That's all you are, his lovely wife
always tells him [not sarcastically, not meanly, no, on the
contrary, gently, lovingly, affectionately] -- a featherplucker.

But Federman gets mad when peoplecall him a featherplucker.
I would prefer to be a chickenfucker than a featherplucker, he
shouts at them. And he really means it.

That's how much Federman loves his name. Federman would kill
the guy who would fuck with his name.

He gets so mad, when in the German Press [where his name often
appears because of his reputation as a famous Schriftsteller -- yes,
Federman is a famous writer in Germany] they spell Federman,
Federmann, with an extra n. That really bugs him to be so easily
assimilated into German Kultur -- with a K.

Federman is proud of his name. Even if you offered him a
million dollars, ten million dollars, he would not sell you his
name, he would not change it. That's how proud he is of his name.
How much he respects his own name. But Federman is worried,
because he is the last Federman in his family. The end of the
line. All the other Federmans have already changed tense. And
Federman has no son by that name.

Ah, but he has a daughter, and his daughter -- the kid as he
calls her, or puce, or pipsy, or mademoiselle Federman, or
Professor Federman [yes, Professor Federman, his lovely daughter is
also a professor, but that's another story which has nothing to do,
or perhaps has everything to do with the name Federman] -- even
though she is now old enough to tell Federman what she thinks of
him, his daughter is so proud of the name Federman, that she will
never, never, she says, even if she were to be tortured, change that
name, or assume another name. She is all Federman. That is why
Federman loves his name and loves those who carry that name.